Test Data Generator
Generate names, emails, addresses and other test data that uses reserved ranges nobody real owns.
About this tool
Generates test data for filling forms and seeding a database: names, email addresses, phone numbers, companies, addresses, dates and identifiers.
**Everything uses a reserved range.** Emails are at `example.com`, phone numbers come from the blocks set aside for fiction, and domains are the three reserved for documentation. That is deliberate and it is the point of the tool.
Test data escapes. It gets copied into a staging database, the staging database gets a real mail configuration by accident, and every test account receives a message. A generator that produces `sarah.jones@gmail.com` produces a live address belonging to somebody who did not ask to receive your test mail — and it works perfectly right up until the day it does not.
Names are drawn from a mix of origins rather than one, because seed data with twenty variations of the same name is how a layout ships without anybody noticing it breaks on a long one.
Common questions
Why not generate realistic email addresses?
Because a realistic one belongs to somebody. Test data ends up in a staging database that eventually gets a working mail configuration, and then real people receive your test messages. example.com is reserved and nobody receives mail there.
Are the phone numbers safe to call?
They come from the ranges regulators reserve for fiction and drama — the numbers used in television so nobody gets called. Safe to put in a test database, and they do not connect to anything.
Why are the names from so many origins?
Because seed data made of twenty short English names produces a layout that has never been tested with a long one or a non-Latin character. That breakage is found by a user, in production.
Is this suitable for load testing?
For a few hundred rows. Beyond that, generate it in a script — pulling ten thousand rows through a web form is slower than writing the loop.